


Secondhand Smoke

by tjstar



Series: (un)adopted [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: 2019, Bunkers, Claustrophobia, Family Secrets, Gen, Kidnapping, No Incest, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Past Drug Addiction, Post-Canon, Protective Ben Hargreeves, Sparrow!Ben, destiny’s children, the sparrow academy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:00:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26495278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjstar/pseuds/tjstar
Summary: “So you’re immortal?“Unofficially.”---Klaus and Ben learn more things about each other’s powers, but not the way they want.
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves & Everyone
Series: (un)adopted [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1917556
Comments: 25
Kudos: 261





	Secondhand Smoke

“Allison, oh my God! Oh my God, you’re _glowing!”_

“What do you want?”

Allison opens the door with a strained smile on her face, and Klaus doesn’t know where to begin. He just wants to share his thoughts with her, to overshare, and,

“Hey, well…”

“I don’t have time,” Allison pushes him into the hallway. “Just… Just go.”

Klaus shakes his head and squeezes himself in the crack between the door and the frame; Allison reluctantly steps back, arms crossed over her chest, glance stern. She’s alone in the room, which is good. Klaus takes a deep breath, closes his eyes just in case and blurts out,

“I know about the baby.”

“You _what?”_

Klaus dodges a mental punch that doesn’t come. Instead, Allison flops down onto the bed and buries her face in her arms. He still feels feverish and unsteady on his feet, and probably he shouldn’t even be there with his _germs,_ but he just needs to sort it all out.

Allison looks up at him. 

“How?”

Klaus raises his hands up before she shoots him another glare. 

“Wait, listen. Ben… _That_ one, you know? From the Academy of Dramatic Bitches. He visited me and said that Reginald scanned us with his monocle, and… That’s how he found out,” he puts his hands on Allison’s shoulders. “No gender reveal party yet, I guess, but who cares about gender anyway? It’s just… He _wants_ that baby. Ben didn’t tell me what’s so special about…” he gestures at Allison’s stomach. 

She doesn’t even look mad. Just confused. And scared. 

“Ben told me to warn you. You can… You can rumor me to forget if you want, I don’t mind.”

“What?” Allison winces. “No, I’m not gonna do that! It’s just… I didn’t tell anyone, not even Ray, and Ben, he’s…”

“An asshole?”

“Yeah.”

“He _is,_ but he stole Reggie’s monocle to prove to me that he wasn’t lying.”

“Who are you trying to defend, Klaus?” Allison squirms out of his grip. “Ben or _yourself,_ because you believe him?”

Ouch, that hurts. His courage is gone. 

“That was a low blow, sis.”

Allison clenches her fists in despair. 

“Oh God, I didn’t mean it, I didn’t want to blame you, really, I’m… I’m sorry.”

“I’m just worried about you. And this timeline, it’s… Different,” Klaus sighs. He’s still sore all over and he should be in bed, sipping on green tea to get rid of toxins, but he never gets what he wants. 

“Do they want to like… Kidnap me?” Allison tries to play it off, to play cool. It never works. 

“I don’t know. We just… Have to get out of here before you gift to this world yet another baby with superpowers, _oh,”_ Klaus suddenly gets curious. “Did Claire have any?”

Allison shakes her head. 

“We can’t find her.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“We’re gonna try again,” she says. “Five’s calling a family meeting.”

Klaus hasn’t seen him yet.

“I better put on my nicest outfit then.”

He just needs to find an excuse to leave. And he’s sweat through this bathrobe, withdrawal-like, post-possession-like. He thought that warning Allison will make him feel better. 

It didn’t. 

***

Five talks a lot. Mostly about paradoxes. Mostly about how much the timeline is screwed up now, and fixing it is almost impossible. 

“Some of the cult members are still alive, by the way” he says. “Klaus, you wanna do something about that?”

“Nein.” 

Klaus still can’t talk without coughing his lungs up. A way too familiar pamphlet slaps him over the head. 

“Their kids and grandkids keep waiting for a prophet.”

“Oh, well, good for ‘em…”

Of course, Five is angry.

“There’s a whole new religion, you idiot,” he adds when he doesn’t get a proper reaction from Klaus. 

“And so what?” Klaus shrugs. 

“You should come to their gathering spot and officially tell them that the cult’s over now. Otherwise, the Commission will… Correct the timeline.”

Klaus presses his hands to his chest. 

“Do you mean… Kill innocent people? Come on, old man, they didn’t give a shit about it in the sixties, why would they start to hunt them now?”

“Klaus,” Diego says. “Don’t start this shit now. Just go and solve your problem.”

“Said _you,”_ Klaus points his finger at him. “My brother, who didn’t even help me get up after the possession. Did they really fry your brain in the asylum?”

Diego cracks his knuckles but doesn’t say anything. 

“We rented a car,” Luther says. “I can take you there.”

Klaus curls into himself in the armchair. 

“Oh, no, no, I can’t go anywhere, I’m sick. Like, really sick, my back’s killing me, and…”

He can’t finish the phrase as a coughing fit makes him double over.

Through the ringing in his ears, he can hear Vanya say,

“Leave him alone.”

Apparently, Five doesn’t want to argue with her, especially when the lights on the ceiling begin to flicker, one tiny bulb explodes. Allison flinches and yelps, Diego pretends that nothing happened. 

Luther says,

“Well, maybe she’s right.”

***

Klaus doesn’t ask his siblings for a ride — he just says he needs to buy cigarettes and leaves the hotel unnoticed. Or, he thinks so. He’s cold again, and his clothes are still shitty, and he keeps hugging himself and exhaling clouds of air — this April is so weird, winter-like. Klaus can’t get rid of the shadows following him. He smokes nearly half of a pack before he finds the community’s gathering spot. It’s a disco club, they’re probably renting it for their meetings a few times a week, or a month. There’s the stage and a microphone, and Klaus can’t believe that the thing that just started by accident continues to live in this timeline too. 

“One day, the prophet will be back.”

Klaus keeps listening, keeps watching. They’re holding their hands raised above their heads, whispering _prophet, prophet,_ and Klaus can’t keep hiding. It’s been fifty-six years since he _and Ben_ started to travel across the world with their “shows.” Since they started their “I know the future” thing. 

Since Klaus started to pull at the strings of the song lyrics. It was spectacular. 

Now, he has no idea what to do, what to say, how to _break up_ with them.

Klaus goes to the stage. There’s a man singing into the mic, _don’t go chasing waterfalls;_ these songs, or his scriptures still exist in 2019, he just predicted them by stealing them. The songwriters quote a prophet, a fraud.

“Stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to,” Klaus finishes for the man, a bit off tune, but does he really care? 

“He came! He’s here!” 

They’re whispering, they stare at him, then at the portrait on the wall — of course, they have his portrait on the wall — and they fall to their knees. They show him their palms — HELLO, GOODBYE. All of them are adults, which is good; Klaus really doesn’t want somebody’s kid’s life to go downhill because of him and this new “religion.”

“My children,” Klaus begins. “Destiny’s Children!”

And they murmur,

“Prophet, prophet!”

As if he’s stuck in the sixties. 

Klaus clutches the mic in his sweaty palms.

“I have a message for you.”

“You’ve been gone for decades!” an old lady from the first row shouts. “Where have you been?”

Klaus really doesn’t remember her. He clicks his tongue and says,

“Those years… It felt like I was gone for a day, and I gained some wisdom to share. For all the new ones, and the veterans of the community,” he turns away from the mic to clear his throat. “Sorry, my children. I spent oh-so many nights just feeling sorry for myself. I used to cry, but now I hold my head up high…”

“You look the same,” a man with the long reddish beard says. “My grandfathers told me you helped them realize who they truly are.”

Klaus can swear he sees tears welling on his eyes behind his too big, hipsterish glasses. There’s something familiar about this look. The new generation of Destiny’s Children is not wearing those blue pajamas, looking more like a fan club, they have those Hawaiian garlands of flowers around their necks. There’s a few dozens of them, but all of them act like they know what they’re doing. 

“I had a vision last night,” Klaus says. “I talked to God once, and she said that I had a mission — and now, my mission is to tell you,” he points at the audience. “That we all have to go home. Stop gathering here, stop spreading my word. That’s my, the prophet’s, will. Go home now, go home,” he hurries them up. “Your families are waiting for you, and I might be gone again. For a few years. Or decades. Or centuries. Depends on my brother’s fortune, actually,” he adds to himself. “If you believe, if you trust me, then… Go home. Just… Just go home.”

That’s not easy. But that “religion” shouldn’t have existed in the first place. 

_“But prophet…”_

_“I named my firstborn after you…”_

_“Will we ever see you again?”_

“I think that was our last meeting.” 

Klaus doesn’t even look at the follower he’s talking to. Guilt, all he feels is guilt. It eats him, it bites him worse than that stupid kidney pain or his sore throat.

_“How can you still stay alive?”_

_“Set me free, Klaus! Set me free!”_

The voices of the ghosts overlap the chatting of the living ones; his fever might be rising again. The disco ball above his head turns to a timebomb, ticking, ticking, as the thumping of bass and helicopter blades reverberate through his bones.

“I want to save you,” Klaus whispers into the mic. “I swear I just want to save you.”

Some of them cry as they leave. But they _leave,_ they don’t ask him to bless their drinks, they don’t wait for him to quote another pop song. They rub their tattooed palms, they touch his shoulders, his hair, they hug him before heading to the exit. He runs out of the empty club too, he wonders if he could actually put some seeds of doubt in their minds. And _damn,_ he still needs to buy cigarettes; he only got one, and he tries his best not to choke on the smoke as he steadies himself against the club wall. As if he’s waiting for a client.

“Keep poisoning yourself?”

Klaus does, in fact, choke. 

“What are _you_ doing here?”

“Came to relish your social awkwardness, _prophet.”_

“Hey, don’t judge me,” Klaus drops the cigarette on the ground. _“You_ weren’t there when I had to survive in Dallas.”

Ben keeps looking at him as if he’s a bug under his shoe. 

“What’s your power, by the way?”

“Could talk to you when you were dead,” Klaus turns away from him. “Such a pain in the ass, you know.”

Ben applauds mockingly. 

“Running away from responsibilities?”

“You are not my responsibility.”

Klaus needs to get back to the hotel, he needs to take a bath and calm down, and the rumbling around him grows louder. 

“Those people… Some of them are older than you, and they’ve never met you before. How do you know this part of the city so well?”

“Used to work here.”

“You had a job?”

Klaus doesn’t elaborate. 

“Why do you care?”

Ben shrugs.

“I don’t.”

He looks at something behind Klaus.

And then he grabs Klaus by the back of his coat, pushing him to the wall; it’s enough to disorient his feverish brain, and his neck stings. Klaus blankly touches the dart sticking out of it, and Ben screams,

“Dad, no!”

The answer drowns in a haze,

“I told you to _watch_ him, not to befriend him, Number One!”

*** 

He feels boneless, but all the soft tissues hurt like hell as he comes to. Slowly, trying to take a deeper breath, but his chest contracts, and his lungs feel swollen and tight. He’s thirsty, he’s still high, and he gets slapped across the face when he begins to laugh. He can’t control it, he doesn’t know what’s going on.

“Come on, wake up, I’m trying to help.”

Next second, pain is dulled by another onslaught of drug-induced happiness, and Klaus feels _awesome._

“Why are you so sad?” he slurs. He opens his eyes, seeing Ben through the wave of dizziness. Seeing dark soundproof walls, and the door with a small round window. “I know this place.”

“You don’t know shit.”

“Oh, believe me, I do,” Klaus sits up as Ben drags him up by the collar. “Reggie used to lock my sister here, and then, boom,” he mimics an explosion. “She blew this place up.”

Ben really sounds confused.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“You know what’s ironic, my little sparrow Benny?” Klaus giggles again. “Reggie used to be the one who wanted me to stop doing the drugs, and now he’s the one who literally messed up my sobriety!”

Ben stops holding him, Klaus curls into himself and coughs until he tastes his lungs on his tongue.

“You’re sick,” Ben says. “You can’t _fight.”_

“Is this what he wanted? You and me against each other?”

The lump in his throat doesn’t let him talk; Klaus knows he’s gonna lose — he can’t defend himself, he doesn’t even want to. He quit the cult, his siblings are not going to find him. The walls around him shrink, and he’s a mouse in a box, trapped, terrified; he’s choking again, lungs full of fluids and whatever shit those cigarettes were filled with.

“Klaus?”

“If you’re using me as a bait, you’ve already failed. My siblings are not coming for me, they don’t care,” Klaus’ voice cracks on the verge of tears. “I swear they don’t.”

Ben rolls up his sleeves, making the tattoo on his wrist visible again.

“Dad said something weird about you.”

And Klaus says,

“Enlighten me.”

“He said that you met death before you met life. That’s the exact quote.”

Klaus is sprawled across the floor again, sea star-like, staring at the ceiling. There’s a brief flashback — _they’re kids,_ _dumb thirteen-year-olds, and he just called Luther a rat because he told Dad that Klaus steals his liquor. And Luther screamed out,_

_“At least I wasn’t born dead!”_

_Mom shushed them immediately,_

_“Boys, don’t fight!”_

Barely sober, Klaus spent that night locked up in a mausoleum; they never talked about that incident. Knowledge comes with pain — Klaus has been slow-dancing with death his whole life, playing hide-and-seek and winning. Dad must’ve told his precious Number One — Luther — that Number Four’s heart stopped beating while his mother was giving birth totally unprepared. 

Now another Number One — Ben — is the first to know. 

And Klaus realizes one more thing. 

“Reggie didn’t even pay for me then,” he giggles. “In _my_ 1989, he got six _alive_ kids and one stillborn, and oh — that’s me!”

Reginald knew that Klaus would come back to life eventually, old bastard knew! 

Klaus wishes he could summon the ghosts to scare the shit out of Ben. But his powers are still asleep, and everything is fuzzy as panic creeps up his throat.

“So you’re immortal?

“Unofficially.”

Of course, Reginald wants to test his powers now — Klaus is not sure if God is gonna keep sending him back. Now, he’s just trapped in a bunker with a monster he used to call a brother — The Horror, colorized, — and his siblings think he’s just fallen off the wagon.

“Hey, Benji. Before you kill me, may I ask you something?” 

Ben adjusts the tie on his neck. Tighter, tighter, to smother his pent-up anger.

“I’m not gonna kill you, clown. It’s pointless, by the way. Don’t wanna clean the bunker up again.”

“Yeah, good point. So, the question is: how do your monsters poop?” Klaus even manages to sit up again. His high self is always up to self-educate. “If The Horror eats a stereotypical bad guy, can I call that, like, cannibalism?”

Ben is not pleased by Klaus’ curiosity.

“Sometimes I wonder how your brain works, oh wait, you don’t have it!” 

“And you’ve known me for, like, a day! But look at us now. You’re about to cry on my shoulder cursing your daddy.”

“Stop calling him _daddy._ It sounds weird when it falls from _your_ mouth.” 

“Oh. Good to know.”

Making people uncomfortable is Klaus’ hobby. He zones out again, but Ben’s voice pulls him out of his trip. 

“Dad would like you to join the Sparrow Academy.”

Klaus scratches the umbrella tattoo, his label, a reminder. Of course, Reginald wants to torture him instead of talking; this is his trademark style. Like that, _just_ like that, pumping him up full of drugs, kidnapping and threatening him to get killed by Ben. But Klaus just needs his life back. Klaus needs his mind back.

He has too many questions. He gets up on his shaky feet, trying to take a fighting stance. 

“Where are the others?”

“On the mission.”

“Including that floating box?”

“He’s the MVP.”

“And why are you not on the mission with them?”

“Because _you_ are my mission.”

“Of course I am.”

Ben looks around the bunker, looks at Klaus, and says,

“You need to get out.”

“Oh, really?”

The door doesn’t think so. Too massive, too thick, locked from outside. Klaus bangs his fist against the glass, just like Vanya did when Luther locked her there. She looked so fragile, and they couldn’t even hear her screams. With his heart thumping in his chest, Klaus gets lost in panic; no matter how old he is, he’s always just a thirteen-year-old boy whenever he enters a closed space. He can hear Ben’s heavy breathing behind his back. His right ear is still clogged, and all the sounds are distorted. 

He’s an easy target. 

He’s helpless against his inner monsters, against Ben, against Reginald. Klaus wants to pull his knees to his chest and sit in the corner; when he glances back at Ben, he pulls his shirt and his uniform sweater up and growls,

“Get out of the door!”

Ben is both calm and terrified — Klaus knows this look on his face, Klaus has seen it so many times, too many times — as the Horror spurts out of his bare stomach. The tentacles are thick, pink and slimy; Klaus can’t move away from the wall, mesmerized, as he keeps watching a deadly show. Ben groans and clenches his fists, trying to control the creature; he’s all tensed up, beads of sweat roll down his temples and the tentacles keep roaming the bunker. 

Klaus jumps away when one of them is about to touch him. 

And then the Horror throws the door open — the whole bulky thing is just smashed, a shred of glass cuts Klaus’ cheek, and Ben turns away from the shower of debris. 

“That’s how you got that scar,” Klaus blurts out. 

Ben’s nose is bleeding; the tentacles keep moving on their own accord. It’s clear that the monsters want more blood, need more blood, and Klaus’ guts might be splattered all across the bunker any second. 

“Run!”

Ben doesn’t need to repeat his order. 

Klaus runs. 

He slips and rounds the corner, holding himself against the walls, he knows how to get out of the Academy, but the drug is a terrible navigator. And his old habits rear their ugly heads again; Klaus turns to the kitchen, opening the drawers and filling his pockets with gold and silver tableware. Reginald from _his_ 1989 didn’t even buy him, just picking a baby corpse for free, and he owes him. So Klaus is robbing Reginald from this timeline, a man who wants him dead just to break him physically and mentally.

“Darling, what are you doing here?”

Klaus turns to the voice.

“Mom? What did they do to you?”

“I’m not your Mom,” Grace says, smiling. Her lipstick is smudged across her chin like blood, and she misses a big chunk of elastic skin imitation on her cheek. Her eyes gleam blue, as bright as lasers, like the flashes running through her electronics. 

Klaus thinks she’s gonna kill him.

She doesn’t. 

She doesn’t even stop him, and he runs to the front door as fast as he can before a zombified version of Pogo or somebody else stops him. 

He doesn’t meet Reginald. 

But he knows he’s being watched. 

*** 

It’s raining hard; by the time he makes it to the hotel, he’s soaked to the bone. He should’ve taken a taxi, but whatever drug Reginald shot him with is still coursing through his veins. 

The door to his and Five’s room is open, the lights are on. 

“Hello?”

He walks in, of course, he walks in. He’s had another shitty day, and his fever doesn’t want to go away; Klaus coughs into his sleeve as he feels a hand on his shoulder.

“Where have you been?”

“So, you suddenly care now?” Klaus smacks Diego’s forearm. “It’s like, six in the morning and you finally noticed I was gone?”

“You’re always gone,” Diego grumbles. 

Klaus sheds his coat off, tossing it onto the bed; a tiny spoon falls out of his pocket. Before he can react, Diego picks it up. 

“You’ve been there again, right? At the Academy.”

Klaus rubs his bare shoulders to get warmer and shivers.

“Yeah.”

“Why?” Diego throws the spoon across the room. “Why do you keep doing that?”

“Because I am the financial glue holding this family together?”*

“I don’t need his money.”

“But I do,” Klaus laughs at his own words. “I need to have something in my pockets if you all decide to go and save the world while I’m sleeping.”

And Diego is a shitty therapist who’s gonna tell him about daddy issues and all that; and Klaus just wants to set Ben free from that shithole of a mansion. Even if he’s not their brother anymore. 

“You’re just trying to replace _our_ Ben. With him,” Diego says, stepping closer until Klaus feels cornered. 

“Well maybe I am!” Klaus hisses out. “Because you never listen to me.”

He wants to walk past Diego, but Diego pushes him back to the wall.

“You’re high,” he says. “Your damn pupils… Of course you’re high. Are you and the Sparrows best pals now? What have you been doing there? Playing chess with Reggie?”

Klaus’ fist works better than his brain, faster than his brain. His knuckles sting, and Diego’s licking up his split lip; Klaus is about to punch him again, but this time, Diego is prepared.

“Get your hands off me!” Klaus tries to kick him, but next thing he’s aware of is that he’s tackled to the floor, and Diego’s weight on him doesn’t let him move.

A giant shadow steps into his sight.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

“Luther, help,” Klaus squeals. 

“We need to tie him,” Diego yelps at the same time. “The Sparrows brainwashed him, and he’s high again. Luther, come on!”

Diego’s knee digs into his side, his abdomen throbs with pain after being dragged around all day.

“Let me go,” Klaus groans. He’s tired of everything, and Luther stands in the middle of the room, waiting for an order. 

Or thinking. 

“You’re being assholes,” there’s one more voice, one more sibling. It’s Allison this time. Klaus is proud to have such smart sisters who stand up for him from time to time. “You’re letting him go _now,_ or I’m rumoring you.”

Klaus takes a shuddering breath when Diego stops pinning him to a fluffy carpet. Diego even helps him get up, steadying him by the shoulder. 

“Thanks,” Klaus grunts, heaving himself up onto his bed.

He can’t stop thinking about Ben ripping the door off the hinges; trying to pull back the Horror, trying to save him and breaking Reginald’s rules. A pained look on Ben’s face, his sudden protectiveness, and brief talk about his potential.

What is he truly capable of?

“Five wants to get another briefcase,” Luther says. “And he took Vanya to the Commission building for some reason.”

“We can’t keep changing the timelines until we lose everything,” Allison says.

Diego interrupts her.

“We got nothing to lose.”

And Klaus says,

“Each other?”

“He’s got a point there,” Luther shrugs. “If we want to kick Reginald’s ass, we should stick together.” 

“Oh, this is the shortest family meeting we’ve ever had. Our Numero Uno is learning from his mistakes!”

“Klaus!” Allison tosses a pillow at him.

“What?! That was a compliment.”

He doesn’t tell them about his adventures; he doesn’t think it matters. The only thing that matters is _another_ family meeting they’re gonna have to arrange when Five and Vanya get back from the Commission office. Klaus’ head still feels fuzzy, but ghostly pleas and cries begin to fill his ears again. 

_“Come to us, Klaus, come to us!”_

“I wish I could,” Klaus whispers. “I wish I could.”

**Author's Note:**

> *ren thank you for this one!!  
> \---  
> my tumblr: @i-seeaspaceshipinthe-sky  
> \---  
> thanks for reading!  
> comments/thoughts/theories are very appreciated <3


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